Musicals

[Chris B]

Those musical numbers are great. I especially love the one with Lucie Arnez. It shows she still has it! I would love for her to do another musical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMXDOodv4t8

This was my favorite number from Birdie. The choreography is just off the charts. I doubt we'd ever see anything like this in a modern movie musical. Not with the actors they'd cast.

[SFK]

I met Michele at a gala a few years back (she gave me several kisses on the cheek for remembering her Pollyanna speech) where she sang some torch song, the name of which I forget. She can definitely hit that back row, she has a strong, warbley belt. She, Lucie and Lainie are pals, they'd be great in a staged reading musical version of something like The Cemetery Club for a benefit.

I'm not a musical freak like you Eric, but if I could chose one from the past that I would have loved to have seen live, it would have been the OBC of Dreamgirls. To witness firsthand all of those innovative filmic elements Michael Bennett brought to his brilliantly oxymoronic "lavish black box" staging would have been an awesome theatregoing experience. Not to mention Jennifer Holliday...

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah i have a bootleg of Bennett's staging of Dreamgirls, and it is amazing to see--I get why some critics felt at the time that his staging really masked a weak show as it's SUCH a phenomenal production it does almost mask the actual show-- The current revival in new York about to tour just doesn't look as good--I wish they woulda done what they did with Bennett's awesome Chorus Line staging (which I just saw on tour) and keep his original. It's hard to beat.

Chris B the dancing in modern movie musicals is actuallya pretty high caliber though often the backing dancers mroe than the stars--but that's one of the best parts of Chicago for example. When Iw as in Birdie in high school Lotta Livin was by far my fave number to do

[Chris B]

That was pretty delightful! It'll certainly be interesting to see how this new take fares. It seems so 60s. I wonder if they'll keep it in that fashion.

Right now I've finished South Pacific and it was absolutely heavenly. I'm off to work so I'll post a more in depth review later, but I really enjoyed it. Even the controversial colouring. I look forward to the revival in March.

[Sylph]

Eric, is there any album by Liza Minelli that you like? Specifically, a studio one, I hate live. I see that she worked with Angelo Badalamenti & Pet Shop Boys.

And Anne Dudley. All on one album.

[EricMontreal22]

I hate live albums too Results is probably her best album (though it's synth heavy--thanks to the Boys) even if you aren't a fan ofPSB. ANd yeah they got Dudley and Badalamenti to work on it. Some of it s kinda camp (Liza singing a dance take on Sondheim's ballad Losing my Mind lol) but lots of it is really beautiful and it surprisingly shows off her voice (So Sorry He Said, a song Neil Tennant wrote to sound like Sondheim, is gorgeous). A lot of people I know were surprised at how good her voice is on it in fact.

Otherwise she doesn't have too many solid albums... Liza with a Z is a thrilling concert but not so much to listen towithout the Fosse stagin and choreography--but a great DVD. you can see how it influenced the more theatre pop concerts that followed like Madonna's (and why Fosse became the only triple crown winner in the same year--winning the Emmy for it, the Tony for Pippin and the Oscar fro Cabaret)

[alphanguy74]

Anyone here see the previews for "Nine"? It kinda looks interesting.

[Sylph]

No, but I read the script.

[EricMontreal22]

Tommy Tune's 1982 original Broadway production of Nine is infamous for being one of the best Broadway productions in history (it actually won the Tony over Bennett's Dreamgirls) and I'm a big fan. Not sure about Marshall's typical style over substance take on this (or cutting over half the songs lol) but...

[SFK]

I saw Tommy Tune on the subway once. I don't care what anyone says, they still haven't topped Anita Morris' "Call from the Vatican", that William Ivey Long costume, those moves, that BODY:

[DRW50]

So this is going to be yet another musical which barely has any songs? Oh well. I might get the DVD.

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[SFK]

That commercial is great, there's a poor quality oot-bay eg-lay of her performance on YouTube too. Yeah, she's referring to the fact that at the last minute they didn't allow her to perform her very risque near-nude number on the Tony telecast.

This is random, but I remember Anita Morris from the VERY short-lived FOX sitcom version of "Down and Out in Beverly Hills", she played the Bette Midler role. Funny as both redheads were in "Ruthless People".

[DRW50]

I remember her for her brief spot as Freddie's hippie mother on A Different World. I don't think that was too long before she passed on, but you wouldn't have known it from her performance.

She was great in Ruthless People. Very hot. That scene where Bill Pullman gave her an orgasm with a hairdryer, or whatever...how did that get past the censors? That was also the movie where the police chief choked his bare-breasted mistress in the car, or whatever. 80s comedies were [!@#$%^&*]*d up.

[SFK]

I remember her as Freddie's mom too, and you are so right, you would have never known she was sick she looked so good. She'd also guested on Cheers (trying to seduce Cliff). I've seen comments made by her husband on YouTube, I'd like to see her in Bare Essence.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA i met him when I was 11 and he used some of us kid tap dancers in a local charity concert (yes I took tap dance lol)

Anita (RIP ) doing Call From the Vatican (which Penelople Cruz does in the movie) was MEANT to be the Tony performance that year but was deemed too explicit so they did the (still kinda raunchy) Be Italian instead. Which is fine but it woulda been nice ot have had Anita's perforamnce captured in high quality (I do have a bootleg)